" We tola you so." 1 1 5 



if you mean to have any ; if you don't protect them, 



depend upon it you won't have any, because the birds 



do not understand equity, but only their own tastes 



and appetites. (If they only took a fair share in 



exchange for their killing of grubs and insects and 



worms, I should be the last to grudge it to them ; but 



while your fine fruit lasts they won't touch aught else !) 



I have sat for hours and watched the efforts of birds to 



remove nettings, and have seen blackbirds, thrushes, 



and starlings all labour for half-hours at a time to clear 



away or scrape off earth tunnel-wise, so that they might 



enter beneath the net or wire fencing, and, having in 



some cases succeeded, so exactly have they taken a 



note of the hole they made, that when you tried to 



catch them, they flew as direct for it, from the farthest 



corner of the covered space to which they had enticed 



you, as a bee-line, and were through as by magic, and 



off, to your great chagrin. And all this before full 



sunrise. I cannot, therefore, bird-lover as I am, give 



quite the same report on this point as Mr. J. G. Wood, 



because, being often " up in the morning early," I have 



sat and watched their persevering application and their 



ingenious devices to outwit you and to eat your choicest 



fruit; and I have paid dearly for not listening to warnings 



of gardeners and neighbours of a practical turn of mind 



who have over and over again looked at my bare beds 



and my cherry trees with bare stones that rattled on 



each other gently in the wind, with a sardonic smile, 



which meant "We told you so." 



Goethe has a very fine parable in its way, based on 

 his experiences, when as a youngster he planted a 

 fruit tree, and from day to day watched its progress, 

 to be ever and anon depressed at the inroads of in- 

 sects, blight, birds, and what not, finally to congratulate 



